Why Do Computers Stop and What Can Be Done About It?

Tandem Computers built fault tolerant and high availably machines before the web existed. The uptime of their machines was legendary, as an apocryphal technical support call demonstrates:

Hi, is this Support? We have a problem with our Tandem: A car bomb exploded outside the bank, and the machine has fallen over. …. No, No it hasn’t crashed, it’s still running, just on its side. We were wondering if we can move it without breaking it.

What is this about?

This is my attic blog. It's an archive of old blog entries and posts on various blogs and blog-like things. When I close a project down, it goes here. This may move, the links aren't permanent, but if you're interested in reading stuff I've written over the years – go nuts!